1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic composition apparatus and a method for automatically composing a piece of music according to various conditions relating to music, and a storage medium that stores a program to be executed for automatically composing a piece of music.
2. Prior Art
A known automatic composition apparatus for automatically composing a piece of music according to various conditions relating to music is disclosed in, for example, laid-open Japanese Patent Publication (Kokai) No. 9-50278 and corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,736,663.
The automatic composition apparatus disclosed in the above-identified publication is adapted to analyze and extract musical features of an already-composed piece of music, and store the results of the analyzing and extracting process as a music template in a performance data memory. The known apparatus enables the user to suitably modify a music template selected from various music templates stored in the memory, thereby to automatically compose a piece of music based on the template that has been modified.
The data contained in the music template include those related to the rhythm of each phrase, including xe2x80x9cdensity pattern (density)xe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cthe presence of a rest at the head of a phrase (phrase head delay designationxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cpassage to be contrasted or imitated (contrast/imitation)xe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cthe presence of syncopation (designation of syncopation)xe2x80x9d and so on. A beat priority setting table that determines the order of priority in which notes are allocated is created on the basis of the above data, and the tone generation timing of each syllable, namely, a rhythm pattern, is determined according to the beat priority setting table, and the number of syllables contained in the measure in question.
In the known automatic composition apparatus as described above, however, the rhythm pattern is determined based on the beat priority setting table that is uniformly determined according to data relating to the rhythm of each phrase indicated in the musical template, and therefore similar rhythm patterns are highly likely to be generated if similar characteristics are set in the musical template.
In order to modify the rhythm pattern, it is necessary to set the value of each of the above-indicated data, i.e., xe2x80x9cdensity pattern (density)xe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cthe presence of a rest at the head of a phrase (phrase head delay designationxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cpassage to be contrasted or imitated (contrast/imitation)xe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cthe presence of syncopation (designation of syncopation)xe2x80x9d and so on, with respect to each of all phrases, thus requiring the user to perform cumbersome setting operations.
Furthermore, a considerably complicated algorithm is used for analyzing and extracting musical characteristics of an already-composed piece of music so as to produce a musical template, which requires an increased programming time and increased programming capacity, resulting in an increased manufacturing cost.
Moreover, the known automatic composition apparatus is not able to generate a rhythm pattern for a pickup measure (a measure that has a leading part thereof included in the previous measure), and thus fails to meet the user""s demand for creating an rhythm pattern(s) for a piece of music containing a pickup measure(s).
It is therefore the first object of the present invention to provide automatic composition apparatus and method capable of modifying a rhythm pattern to provide a wide variety of rhythm patterns only through simple setting, and a storage medium that accomplishes this function.
The second object of the present invention is to provide automatic composition apparatus and method, and storage medium that are able to easily extract musical features of an already-composed piece of music, for example, when a piece of music is composed.
The third object of the present invention is to provide automatic composition apparatus and method, and storage medium capable of generating a rhythm pattern(s) for a piece of music including a singular measure(s) such as a pickup measure(s).
To accomplish the first object, the present invention provides an automatic composition apparatus comprising a rhythm pattern database comprising a plurality of rhythm patterns and characteristic data indicating characteristics of each of the rhythm patterns, a setting device that establishes characteristics of a rhythm pattern of a piece of music to be composed, and a selecting device that retrieves the characteristic data that match the characteristics established by the setting device, from the rhythm pattern database, and selects one of the rhythm patterns that corresponds to the retrieved characteristic data.
To accomplish the first object, the present invention provides an automatic composition method comprising the steps of providing a rhythm pattern database comprising a plurality of rhythm patterns and characteristic data indicating characteristics of each of the rhythm patterns, establishing characteristics of a rhythm pattern of a piece of music to be composed, retrieving the characteristic data that match the established characteristics from the rhythm pattern database, and selecting one of the rhythm patterns that corresponds to the retrieved characteristic data.
To accomplish the first object, the present invention provides a storage medium storing program that is executable by a computer, comprising a setting module that establishes characteristics of a rhythm pattern of a piece of music to be composed and, a selecting module that retrieves characteristic data that match the characteristics established by the setting module, from a rhythm pattern database comprising a plurality of rhythm patterns and characteristic data indicating characteristics of each of the rhythm patterns, and selects one of the rhythm patterns that corresponds to the retrieved characteristic data.
With the apparatus, method, and storage medium constructed as described above, characteristic data that match the set characteristics are retrieved from the rhythm pattern database, and a rhythm pattern corresponding to the retrieved characteristic data is selected. Accordingly, different rhythm patterns having the same characteristics can be easily obtained.
To accomplish the first object, the present invention provides an automatic composition apparatus comprising a setting device that establishes composition conditions to be applied to a whole piece of music to be composed, and an allocating device that allocates the composition conditions established by the setting device to each of sectional elements that constitute the piece of music.
To accomplish the first object, the present invention provides an automatic composition method comprising the steps of establishing composition conditions to be applied to a whole piece of music to be composed, and allocating the established composition conditions to each of sectional elements that constitute the piece of music.
To accomplish the first object, the present invention provides a storage medium storing program that is executable by a computer, comprising a setting module that establishes composition conditions to be applied to a whole piece of music to be composed, and an allocating module that allocates the composition conditions established by the setting device to each of sectional elements that constitute the piece of music.
Here, the sectional element may represent, for example, a passage, a phrase, or a measure, and the composition conditions for the whole piece of music are allocated to, or, distributed among the respective passages, phrases or measures.
With the above arrangement, the composition conditions set for the whole piece of music are allocated to the sectional elements that constitute the piece of music, and therefore a rhythm pattern having different characteristics may be obtained by changing only the characteristics of the whole piece of music, thus assuring an improved efficiency with which the user operates the apparatus.
More preferably, the characteristics of each of the rhythm patterns comprise at least information indicating a number of tone-generation points of the each rhythm pattern, and, when the setting device changes the number of tone-generation points in the piece of music to be composed, the selecting device selects, from the rhythm pattern database, a rhythm pattern whose number of tone-generation points is equal to that after being changed, and which has characteristic data indicating at least one characteristic other than the number of tone generation points, which data are approximate to those of an original rhythm pattern before the setting device changes the number of tone-generation points.
With this arrangement, a rhythm pattern that differs from the original rhythm pattern only in terms of the number of tone-generation points can be generated.
To accomplish the second object, the present invention provides an automatic composition apparatus comprising a rhythm pattern database comprising a plurality of rhythm patterns, and characteristic data indicating characteristics of each of the rhythm patterns, an attaching device that attaches a rhythm pattern to a piece of music to be composed, and a determining device that detects a rhythm pattern corresponding to the rhythm pattern to be attached to the piece of music by searching the rhythm pattern database, and determines characteristic data corresponding to the detected rhythm pattern, as characteristic data of the rhythm pattern to be attached to the piece of music.
To accomplish the second object, the present invention provides an automatic composition method comprising the steps of providing a rhythm pattern database comprising a plurality of rhythm patterns, and characteristic data indicating characteristics of each of the rhythm patterns, attaching a rhythm pattern to a piece of music to be composed, and detecting a rhythm pattern corresponding to the rhythm pattern to be attached to the piece of music by searching the rhythm pattern database, and determining characteristic data corresponding to the detected rhythm pattern, as characteristic data of the rhythm pattern to be attached to the piece of music.
To accomplish the second object of the invention, the present invention provides a storage medium storing program that is executable by a computer, comprising a determining module that searches a rhythm pattern database comprising a plurality of rhythm patterns, and characteristic data indicating characteristics of each of the rhythm patterns, so as to detect a rhythm pattern corresponding to a rhythm pattern to be attached to a piece of music to be composed, and determines characteristic data corresponding to the detected rhythm pattern, as characteristic data of the rhythm pattern to be attached to the piece of music.
With the apparatus and storage medium constructed as described above, a rhythm pattern corresponding to a rhythm pattern to be given to a piece of music to be composed is detected or retrieved from the rhythm pattern database, and characteristic data corresponding to the detected rhythm pattern is determined as characteristic data of the rhythm pattern to be given to the piece of music. Thus, musical features of an already-composed piece of music can be easily extracted when a piece of music is composed.
To accomplish the third object, in the automatic composition apparatus according to the present invention, each of the plurality of rhythm patterns stored in the rhythm pattern database represents a rhythm pattern of one measure, the automatic composition apparatus further comprising a measure dividing device that divides a measure in question in the piece of music to be composed into a first section associated with a previous measure that immediately precedes the measure in question, and a second section associated with a measure that immediately follows the measure in question, when a single rhythm pattern cannot be allocated to the measure in question in the piece of music, and wherein the selecting device selects different rhythm patterns for the first section and the second section, respectively.
With the apparatus constructed as described above, rhythm patterns each corresponding to one measure are stored in the rhythm pattern database. Namely, each of the rhythm patterns stored in the rhythm pattern database represents a rhythm pattern of one measure. When a single rhythm pattern cannot be allocated to a certain measure, the measure is divided into the first section associated with the previous measure, and the second section associated with the immediately following measure, and different rhythm patterns are selected for the first and second sections, respectively. It is thus possible to produce rhythm patterns for a piece of music including a singular measure(s) such as a pickup measure(s).
The above and other objects of the invention will become more apparent from the following drawings taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.